Criccieth - North Wales, or How to Lose your Head in Wales, 5th March 7.45 am

MG

Put an obsessive wild swimmer in charge of a holiday and you will probably find that all roads lead somewhere watery. Thus it was that ECP and I set out on our merry (some might say too merry) way, roadtripping around the Northerly coastal corner of Wales, swimming costume, fleecy tracksuit bottoms and wetsuit boots securely packed. Wales is awash with swimming spots – the Wye at Hay, famous for almost washing me away while my lifeguard read poetry under a tree; the expanse of Whitesands near St David's where JJ and I were the only ones wetsuit-less a few years ago. I've been dying to swim in the tarns over Snowdon for years, but even I will concede that they may not be at their best in March. But after last week's success, I'm buoyed up and determined to take the plunge somewhere.

But it isn't till day three that a perfect opportunity arises. Well, that's sort of true. It isn't till day three that an opportunity SO perfect that I can't ignore it and claim that the water is too shallow, too rough, too dangerous for me to swim alone… It's not that I don't want to, but as previously discussed, an icy plunge isn't always exactly what one feels like...

Criccieth was already highlighted in gold for me by it's description in the guide book; "when Victorian sea bathing became fashionable, English families descended on the sweeping sand and shingle beach at Criccieth…". Yes please. Without any especial effort I have managed to book us into a B&B literally 50 yards from the sea, which almost causes me to spontaneously combust with over excitement. I send SW a few exhilaratory texts, and go to sleep knowing that a pre-breakfast swim is in the offing, which triggers a lovely dream in which I am a seagull, perched on the Battenberg cliffs of Westbay. It is hard to shake this off as, luxury of luxuries, I can hear the sea and the other seagulls from my bed as I awake. I wish every morning started like this. In daylight we've got the most fantastic look out on the flat calm water stretching away and the sun blearily shining.

I'm not ashamed to admit that I do some prancing, but at least it's confined to our room, ECP eventually pushing me out with a "are you going or not?!". The spectre of HL and her fearless swim before breakfast in Brighton last week makes it totally impossible for me to bail; if she were here we would have had sixteen swims already, and she probably would have swum to Dublin and back. So I prance down the stairs and out to the car to grab my towel, then gallop down to the beach. ECP is watching for the "not waving but drowning" signal from our bedroom window, and gives me the thumbs up as I assume an air of nonchanclence, change and swagger down. And then – joy of joys, I'm swimming.

I do a few bursts, work through the burn, and by my last stretch, as always, I feel I could stay in for hours. It's indescribable. With Criccieth castle to my left, the mountains of Snowdonia vaguely visible ahead, and the glassy sea and misty sky blurring into each other, this is what Roger Deakin describes as Dream Swimming, suspended in time and space. It's peerless, perfection, stillness, peace and bliss.

After eventually dragging myself out, changing (and accepting congratulations from a passing dog walker) I make the mistake of wading in to rinse out my swimming costume and without my boots, the burn in my toes is alarming, which shows how essential the boots are. The feeling is starting to flood back with a vengeance, and by the time I'm back in our room I'm feeling a bit chilled, to say the least – soon sorted by a hot shower (oh for one of these on the beach! SW?!) and followed by an enormous swimmer's breakfast.

"Was it you in the sea?" asks our landlady "My husband said some nutter had gone in the water…". She follows up this cracker with stories of leatherback turtles and dolphins in the bay, and most excitingly, a killer whale which had been biting the heads off the seals last summer. I'm relieved to be able to leave Criccieth not only having gone down in legend as A Nutter, but also with my head held high, and, still attached.